


Excuses, excuses

by vanillafluffy



Category: Political Animals
Genre: Gen, Sobriety
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 20:44:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7069258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanillafluffy/pseuds/vanillafluffy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>TJ meets someone else who isn't drinking amid the campaign bachanalia, though not for the same reason.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Excuses, excuses

Campaign fundraisers are going to be the death of him, TJ thinks glumly as he surveys the ballroom. Maybe not literally, but his sobriety is tenuous enough without people waving their martini glasses in his face all night. 

It's late October--only a few weeks left of this circus, one way or another--and Jubal Jacobs is positive Mom has the election in the bag. Soon he can go back to...what? His old normal? Booze, drugs, sex and constantly humiliating himself in public?

Not an option, unless he wants to throw away the last two years. 

"Club soda with a twist of lime," he says to the bartender, and a woman's voice just behind him chimes in, "Two of those!"

She's forty-ish, ash blonde, shapely figure poured into a bright green dress. TJ smiles, a practiced smile that's been wringing campaign contributions out of women like her for months. 

"It's good to see someone else being sensible for a change," she says. "So many people," she gestures at the crowd, "act as if 'open bar' means a free pass to forfeit their dignity and destroy their livers."

TJ offers her one of the tumblers the bartender hands him. "Here's to being sensible."

They click their glasses together. "Besides," his companion says. "I cannot *imagine* pouring that many empty calories down my throat."

"You certainly don't look like you make a habit of it," he says, coloring his tone with admiration. "That dress is divine on you."

She preens, reminding TJ of a very smug parrot--the dress *is* that shade of green--and he makes note of her "empty calories" excuse for future reference. Not that he needs an excuse, but really, his sobriety is nobody's business but his own. 

 

...


End file.
